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If you agree that teachers play a vital role in the development and education of our children and youth than please sign this petition…

Teacher hiring will no longer be based on professional experience and knowledge, but rather how long they have been an occasional teacher with a certain school board. How does this support our students as Bill 115 likes to claim?

Please read the letter I wrote addressing anyone in power who will read it! The letter outlines my own personal struggle and frustration with this ridiculous hiring rule.

I am writing with great concern about Regulation 274/12 and hope that my story is one of many that demonstrates why this new ruling must be revoked.

I am currently an occasional teacher with the Halton District School Board, and sadly on the bottom of page eight of eleven of the new seniority list. I graduated from OISE in 2009 and in February 2010 I was hired for my first teaching position as an LTO with Wellington Heights S.S. in Mount Forest. I applied, I was granted an interview, I gave a good interview and was hired. In the Spring of 2011 I was hired for an LTO position with Banting Memorial H.S. in Alliston. Again, I applied, I was granted an interview, I gave a good interview and was hired. In February 2012 I was hired for an LTO position with Georgetown District High School. Prior to being hired, I volunteered with Georgetown District High School and demonstrated my professionalism and skills as a teacher. As a result, I earned an excellent reference and had relevant experience working with the students in the school and so was a far better candidate for the position. Again though, I applied, I was granted and interview, I gave a good interview and I was hired. Again in the Fall of 2012, I was granted an interview for a position I did not receive because there was one other candidate who had comparable qualifications but more experience in the exact role I applied for. So in this case, I applied, I was granted an interview, I gave a good interview and although I was not hired I was given some excellent feedback on how to improve my chances for the next LTO position. I took the feedback and did my best to apply what I learned. As a result, when the next LTO came around I had the necessary experience as well as the qualifications and I applied, was granted an interview, gave a good interview and was hired for the position.

Since January 7th, I have been working with Gary Allan High School in Milton as an LTO in an alternative classroom with at-risk youth. My professional experience as a youth worker, a program facilitator and a teacher with at-risk youth is what makes me good at my job, not because I have been on a list longer or shorter than another teacher.

As a result of regulation 274/12, my regular pattern of applying for a job and being granted an interview for some of those postings will be shortened to just simply applying for a job, because now I am at the bottom of an arbitrary list that ignores my years of experience working with youth and is only concerned with the date in which I was added to the Occasional List.

This regulation has taken away any hope I had of becoming a teacher and has rendered all of my hard work pointless. I have been working very hard in my current position to make the best impression and demonstrate just how successful I can be in this role, with hopes that when another LTO or permanent position became available, that I would have the experience and references needed to be granted an interview and maybe even earn the position.

I have been unable to find any explanation as to why this new hiring rule has been put in place or even an outline of what ‘problem’ it is solving. I have heard that it is to stop any issues of nepotism, and if this is true than I would like to offer an alternative solution. Develop a regulation that states an administrator from another school must be part of the hiring committee.

How does this regulation help students? How does this regulation actually make the hiring of teachers fair? How will this regulation improve our schools?

Please revoke this regulation as soon as possible. Before I knew that there was a chance I wouldn’t get an interview for a job and now I know without doubt that I will not be getting any more interviews with any school board for a long time.